


dirges for the dead

by lightfighter08



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 19:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4032439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightfighter08/pseuds/lightfighter08
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel is trapped in her room, and in her mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dirges for the dead

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little oneshot I had to write after seeing the tragedy of 3x06 - Rachel, alone in her hospital room.
> 
> Enjoy!

When she cares to watch it, Rachel can tell the passing of the day through the angles of sunlight stretching across her bed. The shards of light move across the room, filling her vision and her mind for hours at a time. The sight captivates her the same way skylines and cityscapes once did.

She rarely looks out the window.

The landscapes faintly visible through the glass, once so representative of all she dreamed of attaining, now stand as a cruel reminder of all she has lost; even worse would be to catch an inadvertent glimpse of her reflection, a possibility she cannot bear. Rachel Duncan is meant to appear perfect at all times. In control. Or _was_ , anyway.

Because Rachel Duncan is dead. Or as good as. Dr. Nealon told her so, and that horrid French tramp made it painfully clear that Topside’s darling self-aware clone has been neatly removed from power.

That thought once would have made her seethe, and then, plan. But it is so hard to summon any real feeling; hard indeed to even bring words to mind and string them into coherence.

This failing, this… _disability_ is driven home by the pity in Dr. Nealon’s eyes when she cannot identify pictures, cannot voice her thoughts. At first, her incoherence was a source of constant humiliation and frustration; now, it only another reminder of the cage in which she has found herself.

She is, for once, utterly powerless, at the mercy of the nurses and pitifully weak. At first, she is not only confined to the room but to her bed; condemned to filtering in and out of consciousness and staring at the same portion of ceiling with her halved vision.

_a confrontation in an operating room – victory in reach – ‘enjoy your oophorectomy’– and then sudden unbearable agony in her left eye oh god oh god what’s happening – and now, here._

Dr. Nealon continues his regular checkups, works with her to regain vocabulary and speech. At the end of every frustrating, shaming lesson, she asks the same question in the disjointed fragments that are now her speech: When can she leave this place?

He only ever gives her the same sad smile and shake of the head: _You’re not ready, Rachel. You can barely talk, let alone take care of yourself. And I think we both know how unstable your situation is._

It’s nothing she doesn’t know, but it is the only tool at her disposal. So she asks, and asks.

Then she is moved to a wheelchair, given an easel and paint. To help reconnect neural pathways, the doctors say. The effort required to express her disgust with the entire exercise only serves to emphasize its necessity.

To her surprise, the painting does help, if only to lessen the crushing nothingness her life has become. She paints, and paints.

It may be helping her mind, but it does not help her heart. As she has slowly regained strength and her abilities, the realities of the last several weeks have returned, first in a trickle and then a deluge. The potential of Sarah Manning’s child – and just the thought of the rogue clone unleashes a wave of incandescent rage in Rachel, white hot feelings that these days she can only rarely access – a test tube of stem cells crushed underfoot…the return of her father, and just as quickly, his end.

Carried out by his own hand, and all to get away from her. To leave her. Again.

She finds an old photograph of her father and her younger self among some of the personal artifacts the doctors permitted her, and spends hours gazing at the smiles the two of them wear, wondering at the lighthearted cheer apparent on both their faces. She wonders if he ever loved her, like she loved him.

Alone in her hospital room, Rachel mourns.

And then one day an unexpected visitor arrives in the shape of Sarah Manning’s foster brother – and _when_ will Rachel be free of the constant reminders of the rogue clone, who inexplicably has everything Rachel so desperately craves – trailed by an anxious looking scientist…Scott, that’s his name.

She is not so lucky with the name of the foster brother, and it is only after he has left, having harassed and humiliated her, that she can recall it. Felix. Meaning lucky and successful. She has never felt anything less.

The fleeting pleasure upon hearing that Sarah Manning has been taken by Castor – and how did Manning even get tangled up with them, she wonders – does not stand up to the brother’s fury. His desperation only serves to summon up hers, and it is in the moment after her choked plea – demand – beg, when she sees the mix of pity and disgust in his eyes, that she realizes how truly alone she is. Ethan, Leekie, Dyad…even the other clones, they’ve all abandoned her. Forgotten her.

Perhaps Felix is right: no one is coming for her, because no one cares.

So Rachel sits, and paints, and stares at the photograph, wondering what could have been.

No one comes.


End file.
